Paper Baron

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LETTER FROM CANADA about newspaper publisher Conrad Black and the lengths to which he went to procure a title and a seat in the British House of Lords… Tells how Black had by the late nineties acquired most of the daily newspapers in Canada… . It is true that members of the Canadian Parliament still swear an oath to the Queen, and that the Queen remains Canada’s head of state, through her representative, the Governor General… For the past half century, though, Canada’s efforts to assume its place in the world as an important and independent nation required that it separate itself from the United Kingdom-at least, until those efforts more urgently required that it separate itself from the United States… Tells about a general disinclination of Canadians to accept royal titles… Australia actually has a phrase for it: the tall-poppy syndrome. The only modern Prime Minister who has formed three consecutive majority governments is the incumbent, Jean Chrétien, who is known as le petit gars de Shawinigan-the little guy from Shawinigan, the drab mill town where he was brought up, one of nineteen children born to a paper-mill machinist and his wife. The Prime Minister is often described as being unable to speak either of Canada’s official languages… Tells how Chrétien blocked an attempt by Black to gain a peerage. This led to Black’s selling his conservative newspapers in Canada, including the National Post, which he had created as a right-wing national alternative to the Globe & Mail, and renouncing his Canadian citizenship… Given the near-extinction of the Progressive Conservatives as a parliamentary party after Chrétien won reëlection easily in 1997, the National Post was sometimes referred to as the "official opposition." However sound the Canadian newspaper sale (to an ally of Chrétien) was as a business deal-some saw it as a shrewd selloff at the right moment; some saw it as a sign that Hollinger was in trouble-it was widely regarded as a retreat for Conrad Black, who was not at the press conference announcing it… He was made Lord Black on Halloween…